Snow Globe
by Catharsiss-BridgetteHayden
Summary: A look inside the private lives of Severus and Harry as they dance an eternal dance of passion and silvery enchantment. Their glass walls allow others to look in. But their love is too great for the outside world. (Tags! SLASH, AU, strange, modern, mild humor, Old Weasleys making out, orgy, vaguely Dubious Consent, Mentions of Het, mention of bdsm)


**SUMMARY: **A look inside the private lives of Severus and Harry as they dance an eternal dance of passion and silvery enchantment. Their glass walls allow others to look in. But their love is too great for the outside world. (Tags are as misleading as they are relevant, since there's only about two seconds of actual content: SLASH! AU, strange, modern, mild humor, Old Weasleys making out, orgy, vaguely dubious consent, Mentions of Het, bdsm concepts).

**This story came from a prompt: ** It's BDSM. But, your ball gag has a kazoo in it. (requested by Kirstan )

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**Please read the warnings in the notes. This is a strange story! SLASH, VAGUELY DUBIOUS CONSENT!**

**Please read the warnings in the notes. This is a strange story! SLASH, VAGUELY DUBIOUS CONSENT!**

**Please read the warnings in the notes. This is a strange story! SLASH, VAGUELY DUBIOUS CONSENT!**

**WARNING #1**: You might lose your lunch over the mild squick factors. One person's squick is another person's kink. Then again, you might not notice at all.

**WARNING #2**: I dug deep into the depths of my soul to make this a great story. I failed. But it is humorous and weird. Oh, so very weird! This is all kinds of wrong. But then, so is a [CENSORED]ball-gag kazoo, so maybe it's a perfect reflection.

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The sound was a machete to the ears. Literally a gag gift, the ball-gag housed a built-in kazoo. It offended Sev's sensibilities at first sight. Harry knew it would. That's why he tried to hide it. But Severus, ever in tune to any covert behavior coming from his husband, appeared behind Harry, just as he was stashing the obscene object in his underwear drawer.

"And what, may I ask, is that?"

"Nothing."

"You put something in there that doesn't belong."

"It's my drawer."

"And your secrets, apparently."

"It's nothing. Something Fred and George set us up with. It was in the presents. It's embarrassing, okay?"

"Our wedding was six months ago. You've withheld a gift that was given to the both of us, for six months?"

"With good reason. It wasn't a real gift. It was the twins behaving very badly. I've spared you."

"I would be the best judge of that."

"Don't make me show you, I don't want you to see it. Trust me."

"Very well."

Harry held his breath, waiting for Severus to walk away. The wizard turned stoically, eyes taking their time letting Harry out of their grip. The matter would be a sore point between them, they squinted, until Harry did what a loyal husband was supposed to do. Obey.

That was fine. That was one guilt trip he would much rather handle than wave this little trinket in front of the only man he needed to think highly of him. Sev was beyond toys, he wouldn't understand. What they did in the bedroom, was so filled with gratefulness and reverence to finally have one another, he couldn't spoil it with shenanigans. He waited for Sev to leave, which was taking seconds longer than it should have, from a wizard who could stride across the room faster than some people could blink.

Harry did blink. And in that micro-second, Sev rounded on his heals, jerked him away from the drawer, and shoved his hand into a mass of cotton fibers that made up the bulk of Harry's tighty-whities.

"Hey! You agreed."

"When I said, 'very well,' that wasn't an agreement. It was an acceptance of the challenge."

"I didn't challenge you."

"Anything that colors your face so, is not going to be hidden from me."

Harry folded his arms and closed his eyes against the object being held in front of him.

"What is this hideous thing?"

"You really don't know?" No way Sev could be that naive.

"If I knew, I wouldn't ask. And since I've asked, I've given you the opportunity to respond to my humble inquiry, without sarcasm."

"It's a ball-gag. This one makes noise."

"And what is the benefit of this device?"

"Evidently, to make the way people have sex look even more ridiculous. It's a form of restraint. It holds the mouth open."

Sev looked at it as though it were an indecipherable spell. "May I ask you to demonstrate its use?"

"No, you may not. I'm tossing it out. Eventually. We have to keep it an obligatory amount of time. But it's getting tossed."

Sev's expression took on the strain of listening to Madame Hooch's gravel-clogged vocal chords.

"What is it about this device that flusters you so?"

Harry squirmed. He didn't want to explain it. He shouldn't have to. "I don't like toys, especially gimmicky ones. Our adventures in the bedroom are… provocative enough without adding antics."

"Oh, I don't know. Something out of the ordinary might be quite revealing."

Harry stared at the object in disgust. "That's what I'm afraid of. When I make love, I want to be thinking of you, not clown accessories. It's useless."

"Used for restraint, you say? Wasn't it during our reception that I had to place my hand over your mouth to keep you from disturbing our guests? Maybe we could put it to good use."

"Severus, we were on all fours under the champagne table. It was your fault we were there, you had better put your hand over my mouth when you talk me into taking risks like that."

"I think this object disturbs you because its use would destroy whatever ideals you are clinging to regarding not only your dignity, but that of your mate."

"I'm not going to argue with that. I like my reality, and my mate, the way it is."

"So you are incapable of stepping outside of your role?"

"What role?"

"The role of someone who is always in control of himself. We live our lives scaling that mountain of self-sufficient strength and capability, only to have it wrested from most before our last breaths are taken. Could you dare lower your defenses in a moment of passion and allow things to be done to you that would make such a device necessary?"

"You're one to talk. Only you can turn a sleazy ball-gag into a fucking existential question of life and death."

"I can do more than that. I can persuade you to see the value of it."

Harry wasn't sure he heard correctly. "You want to actually take this to bed with us?"

To prove his point, he snatched the gag away and blew through the mouthpiece. The bastardization of harmonics that followed, had them both squinting against the assault on their ears. He saw very clearly, that Sev got his point. Annoyance cut a deep groove between Sev's brow and left his lips ready to spew their affront. Amused, Harry started to blow again, but found the gag ripped from his hands.

"See!" He'd won. How was that for romance? They might as well sleep on farting cushions for pillows, for all the appeal that wretched sound had. No way Sev's suffused mannerisms could survive something that repulsive in their bedroom. He was too much of a prude, a detail that charmed Harry to no end. No one buttoned up that tightly, could be okay with an object that represented the very oozing of sexual vulnerability, that society kept it swept under the carpet. He had to gloat. "You want that in bed with us?"

Sev's scowl hinted of physical pain, and Harry felt smug enough to laugh.

Sharp words cut him off. "It simply needs a few modifications. You have under estimated your husband for the first, and the last, time."

Harry was still laughing behind his hand when Sev stormed off. He should've known what was coming. He let him take it. He knew it would turn up again when he least expected it, and felt a little uneasy at the prospect. But still, that blaring pipe of noise had crossed Sev's eyes with revulsion and Harry took delight in being right. So worth it!

What he didn't factor in, in the days that followed, was how their twisted sheets, Sev's coarse legs entangled with his, in the dark, melted his reserve and made him want to make the most inappropriate sounds he could make. In the moisture-rich environment of their friction, he remembered that he wanted to hold nothing back and give everything he could. Sev was a total expert, waiting until he was up to the hilt inside him, and Harry's head thrust back in open-mouth endurance, that he slipped the toy between Harry's lips.

Eyes adrift behind his lids, he knew what it was the moment he felt it against his teeth, and still it did not break the moment. Instead of disturbing his passion there was something about having his mouth forced open that much wider, making him feel small and childish, that punctured the rest of his resistance and let his hunger pour from him. Greedily, he licked at the fingers nudging deeper past his lips. He winced on the way his jaws caught, as the ball lodged them open. He squirmed, humiliated by freely flowing saliva that he was unable to control or hide as his mouth became a focal point of exhibited vulnerability.

He made sounds that night, that he had never allowed himself to make before. That buffer between his teeth, gave him permission to let go. To do his worst, as he interpreted all the things Sev made his body feel, into moans that rode every bend and twist of sexual agony. As Sev played with him, and tortured the limit of how much he could take, he had no idea, until then, the vibration he could put into his groans, or the feedback their reverberation would give him. His whimpers determined what Sev did to him, and he fed that fuel, as much strain beneath his tormentor, as he could give it.

Neither laughed at the clownish device when its staticy blast relayed, not only the velocity and depth of Sev's thrusts, but how Harry suffered to take them and absorb the pace. It was music of a different kind. Ugly, profane, humiliating. That wounded sound put a different spin on their love-making, and sang back to them a more blunt and honest song.

Leave it to a wizard to feel he can improve on such a device.

Harry should've known why the noise forced from his body would have so much appeal. He should've known what Sev was planning, the way he'd pressed Harry's wrists to the bed and kept going until the kazoo had whistled its most excruciating fracture of tone and anti-harmonics. But by then, the sound was synonymous with raw need, and they were immune.

All of it was powered by Harry's hyperventilation. Sweat played on Sev's upper lip as he made a game of playing Harry. It beaded on his neck, trickled between his collar bone, and dripped onto Harry's chest with each pump of his pelvis. Harry became his instrument and the gag relayed their obscene symphony out into the room.

Only a wizard-turned-musician, could conceive of recording those vocal patterns. As Sev drank in the sight of Harry's ruin, his orgasms, and the total exposure of his soul, he wanted a souvenir. A recording. Only, he didn't hear the splintered static that Harry heard from the toy. He heard the sound of magic. He heard something that he could not get the little gadget to convey without magic.

Defeated into the matress, Harry could admit that he'd underestimated his husband. Gladly. He thought it was over. He thought it would be enough for Sev to have proven him wrong. Again, he was wrong.

The party cost them their reputations. They were not hosts. They were not entertainers, but Hermione's desire to impress the Ministry with her fundraiser, had her begging the use of their North American Estate. Set amid the backdrop of wooded Appalachian and dense green mountains, the open floor plan looked out onto glass walls and sunlit ridges from all sides. No land mass in or near the British Isle could boast of that precise combination of warmth, seasonal colors, and brilliant light falling onto their high-gloss, fiberglass floors. There was so much space and privacy, the couple were often chided for remaining childless and carefree when they had so much to offer.

The truth was, Harry and Severus hoarded their privacy. They protected their paradise. Those who had not helped them build it, could not appreciate it the way they did, and therefore were not allowed to access it. If that fueled the gossip that they had become reclusive, then that was a small price to pay.

Hermione had pleaded with Harry. Making stricken eyes beneath her boyishly cropped hair, she used her feminine sweetness to slip around him like silk.

"But it's so beautiful here. So perfect. It's only one afternoon. Your house makes your guests so happy. Let someone else in on the magic for one day."

He'd groaned. "But it's his house too. This is his sanctuary. You know how he feels about guests."

"It's your home too. Surely, you're allowed one afternoon to have the company of your choosing. It would mean the world to me, and I'll not intrude on your little love-nest ever again. I promise."

Reluctantly, he had the talk with Sev. To his surprise, he got an immediate, "If this is what you want, we shall open our home to your friends."

The response was just dry enough, that he knew Sev meant it. He could've done anything he wanted, but having Sev's agreement was all that he wanted these days. In truth, he almost wished he'd said no, and been down right brutal about it. He didn't want anymore interruptions in their perfect life, anymore than Sev did, and he'd wanted to put all the blame on him. But that anticipation failed him.

He should've known by the easiness, the lack of resistance, that Sev was planning something. Something that would keep anyone from ever asking to stay at their dwelling ever again.

On the day of the event, wizards and witches began aparating and flooing in, in groups, into their architectural marvel of a home. Elves were in place to take everyone's cloaks, park their brooms, and keep the champagne flowing. Even the Weasleys managed to look polished next to the Malfoys, who as usual, out shone them all. Harry and Severus never entertained this way, but Harry put himself one hundred percent behind Hermione. Sev did not protest. He gave Harry the gift of silence as the necessary phone calls and arrangements were put into place. Often, he hovered within eyesight, drinking his tea like a demure sorcerer with something to hide. He held up the walls with his back, as Harry paced in front of him check-listing the specifics of the party for Hermione.

The affair guaranteed financial support for yet another of Hermione's causes, and brought out so many of their friends and colleagues. Many saw it as an opportunity to finally get to see how one mysterious Potions Master, long self-exiled from social circles, and his young man, slayer of Dark Lords, were living. There was catering, and a dish to fit every budget, with the most expensive selection costing guests three hundred galleons a plate. People showed up, more to satisfy their curiosity than to empty their pockets. There was Sirius and Remus, Tonks and Shacklebolt, Victor Krum and Fleur Delacour, as well as everyone from school who had graduated successfully from the Ministry's intern program.

Even Fred and George used the opportunity to promote their new line of products, while Neville and Luna maintained polite and rigid party conversation with Draco and Blaise. A pink ribbon sky showered down into the interior of the house, and onto all their finery, with rays of brilliance. The gathering was a success. The day felt as grand as a royal wedding. It was Hermione's idea to have chamber music, and a few adventurous souls began to step around Harry's and Sev's cavernous living room as if they were at a ball. Cathedral-esque ceilings amplified the illusion that they were all inside a crystal snow-globe, rotating on the axis of music, festivity, and the enchantment of light. At the last minute, Harry was feeling so good, he charmed silver glitter confetti to fall lightly from the ceiling continuously, stopping just short of landing on clothes and hair before evaporating. There would be little for the elves to clean up.

He saw Severus frown, looking around his shoulders at this new development. With a room full of guests between them, Harry mouthed the question, 'Do you like it?' to Sev, whose eyes never left him. Arms folded in perpetual begrudgment, Sev's eyes darkened with something he usually reserved for their bedroom. Instead of saying 'yes,' he glided through their guests, pretended he couldn't hear them trying to chatter to him, and made his way up the stairs. The look he gave Harry, pulled him up with him. It sickened Harry that he couldn't follow. But it planted seeds of anticipating the moment when he could sneak away and have a quickie.

By sunset, the walls were blazing as an orange-red horizon gave its final, spectacular good-bye. Defenses were completely down and guests were so relaxed, they did not appear to want to leave. Even Rita Skeeter had made it, and her tight curls relaxed a bit as Ron found the nerve to ask her to dance. Her notepad followed her to the music, and Ron looked amazingly mature as he led. Harry didn't know why, but this made him happy. This was growth and it had somehow happened without anybody noticing. Crabbe had asked Luna to dance, and Neville and Goyle found something to share a laugh about. That kind of mixing it up, meant that everyone was getting past all their old hangups. Old wounds were almost completely healed, and that was very satisfying to see.

Something was in the air. Some anticipation kept his guests there, well beyond their chance to go.

When Sev set the sound system, after their hired musicians had stopped playing, Harry thought little of it. It gave the professional musicians a rest, time to eat and to move around. The piece Sev chose, seemed an excellent choice and charmed everyone with low and experimental tones. It was surprisingly nontraditional, but gentle enough to the ear that it soothed. At first.

Those were human tones, not brass or strings, as if someone's throat had been run through amplified reverberation. It was a song that kept wanting to start, but never fully left the throat. A song that wanted to end, but never really lifted into a beginning. It drug. The pitch was so low, that guests felt it vibrate in their feet. High heels and Italian soles shifted from foot to foot, in order to discern what it was about that voice, and who's voice it was, anyway. At every inquiry, Sev was no where to be found and Harry grew a little uneasy at the pattern he was beginning to recognize.

From a state of the art sound system, intimate depths of a man's voice filled every corner of the house. It had been modified through a filter. A program. And broken into deep, baritone resonance that settled behind Harry's breastplate, shaking it. But that vibration was so subtle, he didn't startle at the effect it had on his heart. The organ suddenly sped, heating his entire circulation within seconds and causing a deviated rhythm.

The drum inside everyone's chest, syncronized with this strange choice of music. Horror would've taken Harry, if the sound hadn't already gotten control of his heart. Looking around for Sev, his mind became a hostage to the influence in the air around him. He knew that voice. He knew that pattern. It was now stretched into the elongated rise and fall of breathless summits and releases. He recognized his own sexual abandon. Sexual agony. It mixed with something dark that slid right under his skin.

His guests fell victim as well. They stopped pestering him about his strange taste in music, and began looking at one another with new eyes. It was a good thing that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were eating hors d'oeuvres next to each other. Tiny squares of cheese and crackers, sushi and olives, fell to the floor, forgotten. The two suddenly gave into a kiss so honest and unashamed that Lucius, standing across from them, retched.

The twins were not so fortunate. Fred and George had been hanging out around the staircase, wisecracking and making fun of everyone in the room, when the idea hit them. There was no point pretending any more. No one mattered to them more than they did to each other, and by damn, they suddenly had the courage to show it. The kiss they shared, wasn't their first and it wasn't as if anyone around them cared. The music's influence traveled among guests like an invisible gas, pulling each from their inhibitions. It moved like a vaporous spell. Unseen, but felt, its influence issued from hidden speakers and Harry, looking around him, could hardly match the people to their acts. Garments began to come off. He tripped over empty heels and dodged his God-father and Remus as they fell passionately onto the sofa beside him, and began making out.

Harry didn't know what was happening, but the pulse in his heart, revving his blood, insisted that he did. He looked for Hermione, afraid of finding her. He held an apology on his lips. Snape was doing this. Or rather, Snape's recording of him, during the most uninhibited bouts of lovemaking he'd ever experienced in his life. The kazoo had been turned into a recording device and captured the sounds pushed from his body as it had reached its breaking point. His sanity had strained against the things Sev made him feel. There had been tears and convulsions of pleasure so strong, Sev had to hold him down. If ever there was a moment when he could not hide what it was like for him to be fucked out of his mind, for the world to see, it was in those twisted sheets, and grunting into that cursed gag. Only, everyone was hearing it instead of seeing it. Everyone was feeling it, they just didn't know that it was him. He hoped.

Sev, that bastard of a wizard, had taken revenge on having his sanctuary invaded by the likes of a political busy-body and her Ministry affiliates. He'd tampered with the recording, rigged spells around it, and was making sure everyone understood why he and Harry were such recluses. Because they lived in paradise. Sexual and otherwise. This was their kingdom and others were not welcomed. His way of expressing this was to extract the highest price any of them had to pay. Their privacy. Their self-control. Not one person would be leaving here without knowing how unwise it was to ever visit again. Not one reputation would remain untarnished. From a wizard who had endured the worst of everyone's gossip and scorn for years, it was a fair price.

He found Hermione in the kitchen, in a situation so blistering to his sight, he looked away before daring to approach her in shock. Not even in his schoolboy fantasies, had he taken the liberty of imagining her topless. Yet, there she was, sitting astride Victor Krum, with only a chain of diamonds to cover her breasts. Her gown lay loose at her waist and hiked up her thighs as Victor lifted his hips beneath her.

No sooner had Harry turned to run from the sight, than he bumped into Draco on his knees in front of Blaise Zabini. He ran back out. Getting through the living room meant teetering around Lucius, who was on all fours, with Narcissa in front of him, and Shacklebolt behind. That was all he could handle seeing. He averted his eyes and raced by, nearly falling when Lucius grabbed his leg.

"Harry…"

Not waiting, he sprang over people locked in embraces on his floor. He leapt writhing bodies and bounded for the stairs. He had to climb over Fred and George as he shouted for Sev. Panic competed with tranquilizing effects of music, confusing him and making the mission of finding his husband all that more imperative.

Their home had become an eerie backdrop for an orgy so horrifyingly surreal, Harry was praying that it was a dream. Things like this were not allowed to be real. If that was really Luna down there, doing what she was doing with Neville pressed against the wall, then Sev had opened the gates of hell and unleashed something on Earth that would have humans extinct within days. It was worse than a zombie apocalypse. It was a sex apocalypse, and they were both going to hell for it. Sweet Luna. Poor Neville.

When Harry began to yell in earnest, that's when a hand shot out from one of the curtained panels to silence him. Sev's wide palm clamped over his mouth as he stepped out of the curtain. In doing so, he turned Harry forcibly, to face their living room from the landing. From there, they had a sweeping view of the chaos below.

Sev's breath heated his ear. "Shhhh… Panic will only frighten them. You don't want to add to the neurosis that is currently having a tremendous backlash below."

Harry demanded, "What's happening? What is this?" His voice muffled into Sev's hand. These were their friends. Harry tore the hand away. "Did you invite them here just to curse them? Poison them?"

The tighter his voice grew, the more tightly Sev held him, similar to restraining a child who would not be soothed.

"No one's been cursed. Instead of running from the sight, look closer." He took Harry by his jaw and steadied his head to face downward.

"You see a room full of upstanding, elite members of society. I see people who are weary of masks. In our home, we don't wear masks. I spent a lifetime trading one guise for another, and I damn well refuse to do so in my home. This is where we can be ourselves without judgment. It is holy. It is our temple. Those who enter must cast away all false pretense. That is the price for entering."

"Are you crazy?"

"In some homes, one leaves their shoes at the door. Some remove their hat, as a form of courtesy. I do not think it's outside of reason to ask our guests to remove their lies. They can leave at any time. They were drawn here because our magic excites them. A house is a house. We've made it what it is. Believe me, my wards are bold. You do not sit down at my table unless you accept the invitation. They know what they're doing. The magic I released from your voice, is simply more compelling than anything they feel at the moment. No one is being harmed. You can be outraged, or you can see how insatiable everyone is, to finally get to have what they want. It was in the air and your friend begged you for a taste."

If Harry could've turned in his grip, he would've. "This is wrong. You're invading their privacy. They have no control over themselves. And I don't want to see this."

"Well no one wants to see it, do they? In fact, you're the only one immune to your own voice enough to have the misfortune of being alert enough to bear witness. Let go. I can show you what's come over them. I can render this human carnage irrelevant to your eyes. What they do with their bodies, is their business."

He kissed the back of Harry's neck, pulling him tighter. Harry squirmed against the wall of heated intention that was drifting from Sev's body into his. "We shall not divulge their secrets. After tonight, they will have fewer to hide from one another. Their lives will be lighter. They may be horrified come morning, but years from now, they will confide this to you. Because of tonight, no one will leave this place pretending to be any better than anyone else. That is what your cries bring out in others. The recording is your soul unmasked. It makes everyone want to take off their masks. I refuse to live any other way."

This was too invasive, and Sev knew it. He resisted the calm assertion in those words. "This is wrong!"

"In their world, yes. In ours, in our paradise, no. They are invading our space. When we go into their homes, we are expected to play by their rules." His hand slid down Harry's neck and hooked inside his shirt.

"I promise you, every adult down there, has the ability to walk out of this house, and out of this influence, right now. I've just given them a very good reason not to. Logic, and fear for their reputations, is lost to it. I am not controlling them, I've simply introduced them to what you and I have. It is summoning their most private choices and suppressing their guilt for having it. Exactly what you and I experience. Exactly what your voice speaks to in them. That is my gift to them. Unaccountable. We all yearn to be free of consequences. I've untied them to the rules and tied them to their bodies, like you and I. What you and I share, what that absurd toy recorded, means the world to me. If I cannot relay that joy to visitors of my home, then they have no business being here. If I am so lowly as to use human touch to free them from their self-denial, then let them turn from this evil place and never come here again."

Harry winced, feeling the fight drain from him. That was his voice coming from the speakers, completely unrecognizable, save for the pattern his gut created as Sev pushed breath from him. How had he turned it into its most basic form of communication? Grumbling frequency and vibration told all of his blood to go to the center of his body and stay there, like a drill. Like an emergency. His legs congealed and he needed to keep leaning against Sev to hold himself up. He needed something to run to, as he couldn't escape the way those hands snapped his buttons. He knew what was coming, and like Hermione, like Draco and Neville, he couldn't say no. Not one more time. The room was too filled with permission. Just this one time. No one was looking because everyone was undergoing the same delusion. The delusion that suddenly it was okay to be yourself and give into the most inappropriate desires in your chest of secrets. The argument that it wasn't okay, it was never okay, died on his lips as Sev's hand traveled lower, tearing through whatever was in its way, finding the thing that ended all arguments.

In that moment, he couldn't say no to what he wanted, and he pushed himself through the welcoming enclosure of Sev's hand. Any attempt to loosen his pants around his hips, got his hands brushed aside, as Sev wanted to do that for him as well. Held firmly, braced against this lawless wizard, Harry looked out on a sea of various states of undress below him, heard noises that no one had any business hearing, and saw things he would learn to censor from his mind. Sev's touch hypnotized him into shaking expectation. On instinct, he parted his legs and twisted slightly, in an effort to help ease his trousers out of the way. This was going to be very uncomfortable if he didn't get them off of one leg, at least. None of that seemed to matter when he heard the fibers rip and felt air cool the heat engulfing his testicles. His thighs were clear free of any material, save only for his shirt, which he knew, could only conceal so much from anyone watching them from below.

Sev was right. No one person was watching them. Everyone had someone they were kissing or knawing on, or on the receiving end of. This was no place to point fingers. It took Sev's thick arm around his chest, to hold him in place, as a cylinder of exquisite flesh barreled its way past the first set of muscles, then the next and the next. That moment of uncertainty, of not being sure he was ready and loose enough, never got old. That's why they did nothing to make it easier. It hurt, but it was bliss. Nothing pushed the last reserves out of Harry like being filled up by Sev. When his body took him in, everything else had to go. Logic, protests, fears, worries. Even tears fled from the corners of his eyes, chased out by the liquid opium flooding his bloodstream. What people? What friends? Oh, those people down there. What they were doing wasn't any of his business, so he didn't waste another second caring. The polite thing to do, was to ignore them and realize they all needed this. They all deserved this much happiness off the records, for one goddamn moment, and if life couldn't give them that, then they were all screwed anyway because it wasn't much to ask for. It felt too good. Too good. Why was anything allowed to feel this good, and not be allowed expression alongside all the useless bullshit suffering that got to show it's ugly head any time it wanted.

Severus pushed weeks of stress from Harry's body. Curved against Harry's back, he pumped vitality back into him. The pace became demanding, but Harry held onto the banister and squeezed his eyes shut through most of it. His balance was fucked and he would've fallen if this stronger wizard wasn't holding onto him. There was no ball-gag around and still, he couldn't keep his saliva in his mouth. Normally, there would be someone there to take it, to keep it from leaking out the sides, and his jaws would have a muscular tongue to chew on, but with Sev behind him, he had to accept the ejection however it wanted to happen. Sweet and experienced, or fast and sloppy. His legs were driven forward by jerks that were distinctly unique to Sev's propulsive way of driving towards a finish. He dug in his heels and pushed back, as hard as he could, knowing the other had no problem taking his weight, and hoping against hope that he could prolong the discharge, both his and Sev's.

An orgasm has the same vital signature as a head-on collision. It's just as violent to the biology of the body. Infinitely sweeter, but so much energy is relayed along the nervous system, so quickly, that Harry cannot exist physically and have an orgasm at the same time. He disappears in his release, and doesn't return until his body is recovered enough. The house could've been on fire, and still he would've fallen slack into Sev's arms, for the duration of his ecstasy. Sev would've held him, waiting just as he did, for Harry to rejoin the living.

"See," Sev kissed his temple. "You and I have not asked anything of them, that you would not give yourself."

Morning comes. It is merciful. The house is quiet. Harry awakens in bed, next to Sev, and dreads what he will see when he puts on his robe and opens his door to go downstairs. Everything is done slowly, because he has no idea what he's going to say to anyone still sleeping in his living room. There's nothing he can say. Maybe he can make them breakfast. Maybe he can pay for their therapy. Maybe he won't get sued. There was no way to fix this. If they'd lost all respect for him and hated him, he'd have to accept that.

As it turns out, most everyone was gone. The elves were cleaning, and those stragglers brushing sleep from their eyes, did everything in their power not to look at Harry as they found their shoes and rushed apologetically into the fireplace. Hermione would not look him in the face, but neither did she accuse him of having anything to do with actions that could not be undone. The set in her chin, and the way she clutched her coat against her, stepping barefoot into the floo, said she wasn't ready to talk about it. She wasn't even ready to admit that it had happened. He respected her silence and kept his distance.

It was too soon to attempt to talk to anyone about this, which was why he politely stepped out of Luna's way when he saw her crawling around on her hands and knees. She was wearing a pair of men's trousers that she held to cover her chest. Her smile was shy, but bright.

"Morning, Harry. Quite a party. Can Neville and I have a quick shower before heading out?"

Her pleasantry surprised him. "Of course. There's two bathrooms down that way." He pointed.

"Those are taken. May we find one upstairs?"

"Uh, certainly. Just ask one of the elves." She started off and he stopped her. "Luna, aren't you upset or anything. This wasn't a normal party."

"Excuse me?"

"Look, there was something going on with that recording. Everyone was under the influence of magic and I'm so so sorry. I didn't plan it. So, if you're going to press charges against me or Sev, I really want you to know, we didn't mean to take advantage of anyone. This is not how we normally treat guests."

Her thin shoulders dropped and her patience slipped. "Harry Potter, what are you talking about? I had more fun last night than I've had in a year. There's simply no time to listen to your insecurities." She stepped up to him and kissed his cheek. "Nev and I need to be in London, in twenty minutes, and if I don't get a shower, I'm going to be very cranky. I suppose last night might've been a huge mistake for some people, but it wasn't for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for a great evening."

She flipped her hair, pulled the trousers up to keep from tripping, and shouted to Neville that they had a hot shower waiting on them. Behind Harry, the sofa moved, and Neville came crawling out of piles of lost and discarded coats and cushions. He was naked. He hid his privates with a cushion.

"Hi Harry."

The last thing Harry saw of him, was the crack of his ass as it jiggled when he ran up the stairs after Luna.

After the last guest slunk out, too embarrassed to meet their eyes, and the house was restored to its pristine surfaces and luxurious quiet, Sev put on Bethoven. He pulled Hairy from his sulk by the window, and they stepped in time to the music.

He soothed, "Your friends are capable witches and wizards. They can afford their own therapy."

Harry still didn't believe that all of that had happened merely because of his voice, as altered as it was. They were assigning too much power to a kazoo.

Sev twirled him gently. "Magic spills from your voice, Harry. The more honest you are, the more powerful it is. That's what makes me want to extract as much pleasure from you as I can. As for your friends, for one evening, they could not lie. You may think that was my spell, but it was your vulnerability, as vocalized by your desire. That's why I took the trouble of recording it. There is magic in your letting go, that affects others. You graciously opened our home to them. I followed your example and graciously shared our magic.

"Ms. Grainger couldn't look you in the eye because she knows that no one was controlling her. She, and all of them, acted in accordance with secrets and desires that were in place long before they entered our home. Now they know, you do not enter this dwelling unless you can afford to be honest. For some, the price is high, indeed."

Harry was never a great dancer, so Sev's fluid motion charmed him all the more. He could not keep time to the symphony, but he could keep a certain cadence with the wizard holding him. He loved the way Sev led. It made him feel like he knew what he was doing.

"Pity it was too much for some of them," he continued. "But now they know, it is in no one's favor to return here again. And now that we have the place to ourselves, where were we?"

His steps slowed enough to bring Harry's chin up and kiss him. Steps to the music resumed. Harry smiled and silver confetti began to drift around them. It dissolved the minute it settled on their shoulders, like snow. They were alone again in their crystal globe, their perfectly private home, and in their love.

* * *

Top stories from this writer:

The Unbearable Series (Unbearable Draco, Masterpiece Severus, Unbearable Harry)

New House

Cauldron


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